[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

# Recommended reading

- Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:28:39 PDT
- From:

    A friend forwarded me this:

    ------- Forwarded Message

    Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 10:41:49 -0700 (PDT)
    From: Phil Agre <pagre@weber.ucsd.edu>
    To: Red Rock Eater List <rre@weber.ucsd.edu>

    [...]

    People who run MUD's keep telling me variants of the same story, whose
    upshot is that some user starts behaving in extremely divisive ways and
    starts turning the whole place inside out. One typical pattern is for this
    user to do something outrageous, provoke a strict response, scream about
    injustice, and polarize the community between lovers of order who hate
    the user and lovers of fairness who hate the administration. Another
    typical pattern is people who wait until the last minute of a group
    decision-making process to raise fundamental objections, carrying on about
    dictatorship unless everyone starts the whole process over again from
    scratch. Such people give genuine crusaders for justice a bad name, of
    course, and they also cause immense and mysterious upset. Everybody who
    operates a MUD should read R.D. Hinshelwood's book "What Happens in
    Groups:  Psychoanalysis, the Individual and the Community", London: Free
    Association Books, 1987. It is a detailed account of exactly this sort of
    behavior.  It's set in mental hospitals, of course, as opposed to MUD's,
    but the principles are the same.

    ------- End of Forwarded Message

Follow-Ups:

- Recommended reading

- From: tsmith@paoli.atm.lmco.com

- Prev: RE: Q: Adding another wizard class.
- Next: Recommended reading
- Index: MOO-cows
- Thread: MOO-cows

Home | Subject Index | Thread Index